Todd McFarlane's Spawn 3 - The Ultimate Battle (Animated Series)

Starring:Eric Roberts, Richard A. Dysart, Debbi Morgan, Khandi Alexander, Robert Forster, Victor Love, Keith David, John Di Maggio, Ming-Na, James Keane, Xander Berkeley, Victor Brandt, Robert Costanzo, Greg Eagles, Jennifer Jason Leigh, James Hong, Carlos Ferro, Michael Beach
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Todd McFarlane's Spawn
Adult, stylish, and more than a little mean, this full-length animated tale has one very strong thing going for it--it knows how to milk "cool." The animation is superior to anything recently devoted to a superhero...or super-antihero, in this case. Al Simmons was a government assassin before he was burned to death and sent to hell (plot summary's starting out nicely, isn't it?). After making a particularly bad deal with the devil--to lead Satan's dark armies in exchange for seeing his wife again--Spawn is let loose upon the world. He immediately whacks three mob hit men, making his presence known and getting himself into all sorts of trouble. Spawn is also visited by the Clown, an obese, disgusting Beatrice, guiding our third-degree-burned Dante through this hellish, topside world. There are other nasty characters, but in this first segment a very gratuitous inclusion of a child murderer goes too far for even this mature fare. Spawn isn't fun; there's very little joy in any of this. But the point isn't fun--it's brutal, adult-comic style. And there's plenty of it. --Keith Simanton

Todd McFarlane's Spawn 2
From the mind of comic-book maestro Todd McFarlane comes the second season of episodes of the animated Spawn. Highly stylized animation and provocative story lines make Spawn a sophisticated cartoon sometimes more appropriate for older audiences. Murder victim Al Simmons has returned from hell to earth as a "hellspawn," a soldier for the army of darkness sent to collect more souls for hell. In these episodes, Spawn meets the man who assassinated him and becomes suspicious of the organization that ordered him killed. Jason Wynn, the leader of the group, plans to sell weapons of mass destruction stolen from the military. Spawn's former wife, Wanda, has since remarried Terry Fitzgerald, with whom Spawn must reconcile. Terry is hot on the trail of the missing arms, and Wynn and his assassins, including the highly trained Merrick, set out to kill Terry, Wanda, and their daughter, Cyan. Spawn foils the plot while realizing the hard truth that Wanda has a new life. --Shannon Gee

Amazon.com

Todd McFarlane's Spawn
Adult, stylish, and more than a little mean, this full-length animated tale has one very strong thing going for it--it knows how to milk "cool." The animation is superior to anything recently devoted to a superhero...or super-antihero, in this case. Al Simmons was a government assassin before he was burned to death and sent to hell (plot summary's starting out nicely, isn't it?). After making a particularly bad deal with the devil--to lead Satan's dark armies in exchange for seeing his wife again--Spawn is let loose upon the world. He immediately whacks three mob hit men, making his presence known and getting himself into all sorts of trouble. Spawn is also visited by the Clown, an obese, disgusting Beatrice, guiding our third-degree-burned Dante through this hellish, topside world. There are other nasty characters, but in this first segment a very gratuitous inclusion of a child murderer goes too far for even this mature fare. Spawn isn't fun; there's very little joy in any of this. But the point isn't fun--it's brutal, adult-comic style. And there's plenty of it. --Keith Simanton

Todd McFarlane's Spawn 2
From the mind of comic-book maestro Todd McFarlane comes the second season of episodes of the animated Spawn. Highly stylized animation and provocative story lines make Spawn a sophisticated cartoon sometimes more appropriate for older audiences. Murder victim Al Simmons has returned from hell to earth as a "hellspawn," a soldier for the army of darkness sent to collect more souls for hell. In these episodes, Spawn meets the man who assassinated him and becomes suspicious of the organization that ordered him killed. Jason Wynn, the leader of the group, plans to sell weapons of mass destruction stolen from the military. Spawn's former wife, Wanda, has since remarried Terry Fitzgerald, with whom Spawn must reconcile. Terry is hot on the trail of the missing arms, and Wynn and his assassins, including the highly trained Merrick, set out to kill Terry, Wanda, and their daughter, Cyan. Spawn foils the plot while realizing the hard truth that Wanda has a new life. --Shannon Gee

Spawn 3: The Ultimate Battle
The third chapter of this compelling HBO miniseries answers a number of questions--namely, who is the omnipotent old man who hides in the shadows and why is the mysterious Asian reporter (Jade) investigating the alley murders? Spawn has reached a crossroads, and he must choose between the forces of darkness and light. But it's not clear-cut: Al (Spawn) must deliberate over the seemingly minor differences that separate heaven and hell in his world. As a former assassin for the NSA, he "opened the eyes of hell" with his iniquitous deeds of depravity; therefore, his journey to hell was preordained. But this particular section of the series intriguingly asks, What if you had no choice, and killing was not just the only way out of a squeeze but was also your fate? Intellectual stuff, indeed. But as with the rest of the series, a profound metaphysical puzzle is brought to the fore without justifying it with an answer. It's frustrating, but also keeps you firmly planted in your chair, pondering conundrum after conundrum. --Jeremy Storey

Description

A terrifying whirlwind is sucking the earth dry, dragging all caught in its spiral down to the very depths of hell. Todd McFarlane's SPAWN at last stands alone, torn between heaven and hell. From Hell the evil forces that control his destiny beckon. And from Heaven, bounty hunters, whose soul mission is the destruction of hellspawn, have been sent to destroy him. Beautiful, seductive, deadly. No man can resist them. No hellspawn can survive them.

Customer Reviews:

Great fun, but not an ending.......2007-01-09

Continues the Spawn story from the previous two DVDs, each of which (I believe) contains a whole season of the HBO animated series. My only complaint is that this doesn't provide any sort of end; if you enjoy it, you'll wish there was another disc to continue the story.

I WANT A SPAWN 4!!!!!!.......2006-10-18

I don't think I will get another one but I wish I knew why. I never even knew this was a show on HBO. I just stumbled upon the first Spawn and of course had to get the 2nd and 3rd. Overall the 2nd and 3rd seasons of Spawn don't live up to the first but it always entertains. This one starts out setting up the ultimate Hell vs. Heaven scenario. The old man who keeps talking to Spawn whether he likes it or not explains his backround and also explains how this war is being played. Heaven of course sends the angel bounty hunter to eliminate Spawn and we end up getting a pretty good story here. But they also send a vampire creature to take Spawn out since the first killer isn't getting the job done. Not exactly the Heaven I grew up knowing.

The show continues to be very violent but not anything too sickening. I liked how it felt like a good cop drama with the story between Twitch and his mindless partner. But they give him a lot more of a role in this one and can you believe you may end up respecting that fat slob of a cop? I never thought it would happen. Overall, I enjoyed this series very much and hope that it will comes back one day.

Wanda! Wanda! Wanda!.......2006-08-15

the show was on HBO, it could have been as graphic as the comic, but nooooooooooooo it had to be a complaining Spawn, the fighting scenes? please, the only reason i gave it 3 stars is because i like Spawn, and $9.99 is a great price for this product, and i had to get the collection, but its still on the shelf after just viewing it once

just average.......2005-05-01

I give this one an average rating. Why? I hate it when they add asian characters but forget to do the research on their background to make it 'accurate'? I'm japanese, so it's quite obvious that there was HUGE HUGE errors in Jade's character. For one thing Khan is a character out of China. Jade is using Samuri swords from feudal Japan. Completely opposite sides of the wars and cultures during that time period. It's like what us Japanese say about the zen gardens and zen furniture. "I don't remember ever seen that in Japan. Oh wait, it's American".

The Jade character being an mercenary is way to cheezy. The fight between evil and good was ok, but to add a mask of Khan, the chinese Triads, and a samurai warrior from china was way outside of what this could have been.

If you ever watch the makings of animated counter-parts from Japan, you'll realize that the first thing they do is make sure that the character designs and parts of the towns, allies are always based on realism. Ghost in the Shell, they actually flew to Guam (outside Japan) just to practice shooting guns, to see how they work, shoot, see sparks, and do damage. The realism team brought this back and added it to the film.

Spawn 3? Really really blew the factoid on this one. Jade is so way off in regards to her culture country background, and the outfit just doesn't look accurate either. I was really dissapointed by the characters.

However I did like the blond mercenary whom was so well animated and would've passed a character from the Street Fighter II animated film.

Buy Spawn I, but forget about III.

Spawn.......2004-11-13

Spawn is a resurrected U.S. soldier/assassin who made himself one bad deal with Hell and tries to make things right. Or something like that. It probably wasn't a good idea to immerse myself in Spawn with SPAWN 3, a compilation of episodes from the third season of the HBO animated series.
However, after seeing SPAWN 3, I'm not at all anxious to investigate 1 or 2. The animation is good to very good but my gosh this in one slow moving action story. Even a neophyte like me could pick up on most of the important plot points because this movie tends to repeat things over and over and over. I realize this is supposed to be a mature comic aimed at an adult audience, but I found its philosophical musings shallow and trite. If I'd been paying more attention I might have found them laughable.
If you want to watch an angst-driven animated hero, or anti-hero, with really bad teeth and a cool, life-of-its-own costume, give this one a shot.

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